Chapter 184

Section 1. Aliens may take, hold, transmit and convey real property, and no title to real property shall be invalid on account of the alienage of a former owner.

Section 10. No expectant estate shall be defeated or barred by an alienation or other act of the owner of the precedent estate, nor by the destruction of such precedent estate by disseisin, forfeiture, surrender or merger.

Section 11. The two preceding sections shall not prevent the barring of estates tail in the manner provided in chapter one hundred and eighty-three, nor an expectant estate from being defeated in a manner provided for or authorized by the person creating such estate.

Section 12. Fixtures annexed to the freehold by a life tenant or by his assigns may be removed during the continuance of the life estate or within a reasonable time thereafter; and in determining what are fixtures, the common law rules prevailing between a landlord and a tenant f…

Section 14. If the supreme judicial court or the probate court for the county where the land lies finds that wood or timber, standing on land the use and improvement of which belongs, for life or otherwise, to a person other than the owner of the fee therein, has ceased to improv…

Section 15. (a) A wit of entry or other proceeding that affects the title to real property or the use and occupation thereof or the buildings thereon, shall not have any effect except against the parties thereto, their heirs and devisees and persons having actual non-record notic…

Section 16. At any time after final judgment or a decree in favor of the defendant, or after the discontinuance, dismissal or other final disposition, by consent of parties or otherwise, of a proceeding mentioned in the preceding section, or in case of the non-entry of the writ, …

Section 17. A judgment or decree, at law or in equity, rendered after June eighth, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, affecting the title to real property, shall not have any effect except against the parties thereto, their heirs and devisees and persons having actual notice thereo…

Section 17A. No agreement for the purchase and sale of real estate or any extension thereof shall be received for record in any registry of deeds unless such agreement or extension thereof is acknowledged by the parties agreeing to sell such real estate or one of them. No agreeme…

Section 17B. Every application for a mortgage loan on 1–to–4–family residential property and occupied or to be occupied in whole or in part by the obligor on the mortgage debt shall be made on a printed form which shall contain the following 2 statements in type of at least 2 poi…

Section 18. No person shall make an entry into land or tenements except in cases where his entry is allowed by law, and in such cases he shall not enter by force, but in a peaceable manner. No person shall attempt to recover possession of land or tenements in any manner other tha…

Section 19. If real property has been conveyed by deed on a condition therein expressed, which is not a mortgage and if proceedings based upon right of entry for breach of such conditions have not been barred by section thirty-one A of chapter two hundred and sixty, the grantor, …

Section 2. If a contingent remainder, executory devise or other estate in expectancy is so granted or limited to a person that in case of his death before the happening of the contingency the estate would descend to his heirs in fee simple, he may, before the happening of the con…

Section 20. No descent or discontinuance shall take away or defeat any right of entry or of action for the recovery of real property.

Section 21. If real property upon which any encumbrance exists is conveyed by deed or mortgage, the grantor, in whatever capacity he may act, shall before the consideration is paid, by exception in the deed or otherwise make known to the grantee the existence and nature of such p…

Section 22. Whoever conveys real property by a deed or mortgage which contains a covenant that it is free from all encumbrances shall, if it appears by a public record that an actual or apparent encumbrance, known or unknown to him, exists thereon, be liable in an action of contr…

Section 23. Conditions or restrictions, unlimited as to time, by which the title or use of real property is affected, shall be limited to the term of thirty years after the date of the deed or other instrument or the date of the probate of the will creating them, except in cases …

Section 23A. No action, suit, or proceeding shall be maintained either at law or in equity in any court to recover damages or to compel the removal, alteration, or relocation of any structure by reason of any violation of any private restriction or condition in the nature of a re…

Section 23B. A provision in an instrument relating to real property which purports to forbid or restrict the conveyance, encumbrance, occupancy, or lease thereof to individuals of a specified race, color, religion, national origin or sex shall be void. Any condition, restriction …

Section 23C. Any provision in an instrument relative to the ownership or use of real property which purports to forbid or unreasonably restrict the installation or use of a solar energy system as defined in section one A of chapter forty A or the building of structures that facil…

Section 23D. Any restriction, reservation, condition, exception, or covenant in any subdivision plan, deed or other instrument of or pertaining to the transfer, sale, lease or use of property which would permit residential use of property but would prohibit a community residence …

Section 24. When any owner of land the title to which is not registered, or of any interest in such land, signs an instrument in writing conveying or purporting to convey his land or interest, or in any manner affecting or purporting to affect his title thereto, and the instrumen…

Section 25. No indefinite reference in a recorded instrument shall subject any person not an immediate party thereto to any interest in real estate, legal or equitable, nor put any such person on inquiry with respect to such interest, nor be a cloud on or otherwise adversely affe…

Section 26. All restrictions on the use of land or construction thereon which run with the land subject thereto and are imposed by covenant, agreement, or otherwise, whether or not stated in the form of a condition, in any deed, will or other instrument executed by or on behalf o…

Section 27. No restriction imposed after December thirty-first, nineteen hundred and sixty-one shall be enforceable:— (a) unless the person seeking enforcement (1) is a party to the instrument imposing the restriction and it is stated to be for his benefit or is entitled to such …

Section 28. No restriction imposed before January first, nineteen hundred and sixty-two shall be enforceable after the expiration of fifty years from its imposition unless a notice of restriction is recorded before the expiration of such fifty years or before January first, ninet…

Section 29. No notice or extension of restriction under sections twenty-seven or twenty-eight shall be effective against a subject parcel (a) if its title is registered, unless the notice or extension is noted on the certificate or certificates of title thereof or (b) if its titl…

Section 3. A contingent remainder shall take effect, notwithstanding any determination of the particular estate, in the same manner in which it would have taken effect if it had been an executory devise or a springing or shifting use, and shall, as well as such limitations, be su…

Section 30. No restriction shall in any proceeding be enforced or declared to be enforceable, whether or not the time for recording a notice or extension under section twenty-seven or twenty-eight has occurred, or such a notice or extension has been recorded, unless it is determi…

Section 31. A conservation restriction means a right, either in perpetuity or for a specified number of years, whether or not stated in the form of a restriction, easement, covenant or condition, in any deed, will or other instrument executed by or on behalf of the owner of the l…

Section 32. No conservation restriction, agricultural preservation or watershed preservation restriction as defined in section thirty-one, held by any governmental body or by a charitable corporation or trust whose purposes include conservation of land or water areas or of a part…

Section 33. Any city or town may file with the register of deeds for the county or district in which it is situated a map or set of maps of the city or town, to be known as the public restriction tract index, on which may be indexed conservation, preservation, agricultural preser…

Section 34. Any recordable instrument purporting to affect an interest in real estate executed by any person or persons who, in the records of the registry of deeds for the county or district in which the real estate lies, are or appear to be the trustees of a trust shall be bind…

Section 35. Notwithstanding section 25 to the contrary, a certificate sworn to or stated to be executed under the penalties of perjury, and in either case signed by a person who from the records of the registry of deeds or of the registry district of the land court, for the count…

Section 4. Land held in fee tail, except an estate tail in remainder, shall be liable for the debts of the tenant in tail, both in his lifetime and after his decease, as if held in fee simple; and if taken on execution or sold by executors, administrators, guardians or conservato…

Section 5. If land is granted or devised to a person and after his death to his heirs in fee, however the grant or devise is expressed, an estate for life only shall vest in such first taker, and a remainder in fee simple in his heirs.

Section 6. In a limitation of real or personal property by deed, will or other instrument in writing, executed after April thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty-eight, the words ''die without issue'', or ''die without leaving issue'', or ''have no issue'', or ''die without heirs…

Section 6A. In a limitation of real or personal property to a class described as the ''heirs'' or ''next of kin'' of a person, or described by words of similar import, to take effect in enjoyment upon the happening of an event within the period of the rule against perpetuities, t…

Section 7. A conveyance or devise of land to two or more persons or to husband and wife, except a mortgage or a devise or conveyance in trust, shall create an estate in common and not in joint tenancy, unless it is expressed in such conveyance or devise that the grantees or devis…

Section 8. Real estate, including any interest therein, may be transferred by a person to himself jointly with another person in the same manner in which it might be transferred by him to another person, and a conveyance of real estate by a person to himself and his spouse as ten…

Section 8A. In any city or town which accepts this section, the assessors shall, if they have reason to believe that the name and address of the grantee of record in a transfer of real estate is not the name and address of the owner of the real estate, by written notice, request …

Section 9. A conveyance by a tenant for life or years which purports to grant a greater estate than he possesses or can lawfully convey shall not work a forfeiture of his estate, but shall pass to the grantee all the estate which such tenant can lawfully convey.